Raw materials sourcing

Clearing of trees and woodland areas to meet global demand for timber-based products, or to make space for farming and food production means the destruction of natural habitats, loss of biodiversity, and reduced carbon capture, all of which have significant economic, environmental and social impacts. As a responsible retailer we have a role to play in supporting sustainable forestry practices and curbing the worldwide trade in illegal timber. 

Sustainable forestry is defined as the management of forests in a way that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, and regeneration capacity. It also considers their potential to fulfil ecological, economic and social functions both now and in the future. We expect all our suppliers to comply with our John Lewis Partnership Timber Standard and, where applicable, the UK Timber Regulation (UKTR). However, our ultimate aim is to always exceed legislative requirements in our purchasing practices and source our raw materials in the most sustainable way possible.

Chocolate is a staple of many of our shopping baskets, however despite its popularity, income is low for many of the world’s cocoa farmers. 90% of the world’s cocoa is grown on small family farms where income often fails to keep up with the rising costs of production. Many families in cocoa producing countries across West Africa and Latin America often struggle to access essentials such as  healthcare, food and education. Since 2020, all cocoa used in our own-brand confectionery products is sourced on Fairtrade terms.

Waitrose is a founding member of the Retailers’ Cocoa Collaboration which aims to support existing industry efforts to drive improvements in the cocoa sector.

Over 90% of global soya is used in animal feed. A high protein bean, it’s a key nutritional ingredient in some animal diets, particularly for our pigs, poultry and farmed fish. However, soya supply chains can be associated with negative environmental and social issues, and most globally traded soya is grown in South America, where deforestation and the conversion of natural habitats - along with the associated impacts on biodiversity and climate change - is an urgent problem. 

Our aim is to source the soya in our animal and aquaculture feed from physically certified (mass-balance or segregated) supply chains, or from verified sourcing areas, and from soya traders that have committed to only source their soya from farms that have not caused deforestation. The complexity of international soya supply chains means unfortunately, there is still a lot of work to do to make this a reality, and we recognise this is not something Waitrose working alone can deliver. For this reason, we work actively as part of a number of industry groups to help drive the changes needed to transform the market in the UK and beyond, and have supported the introduction of ambitious due diligence legislation for forest risk commodities by the UK Government.

We are also interested in the soya footprint used to produce animal or fish-derived ingredients in the food we sell. For many of these we don’t have direct influence over the animal feed used to produce them. For this portion of our footprint, and where sourcing physically certified soya in feed isn’t yet possible, we believe the most impactful thing we can do is to buy Roundtable on Responsible Soya (RTRS) credits, which are a vital tool to support and incentivise farmers to produce soya responsibly. 

Soya used directly in our products, such as soya milk, makes up less than 1% of our business’ total soya footprint. We also buy RTRS credits to cover this portion of our footprint.

Since 2016, no soya has been used in feed rations for dairy cows by the Waitrose Dairy Farmers group in order to produce Waitrose Essentials own-label milk and cream. As of 1 January 2020, no soya is used in the production of young stock for dairy production either.

For more detail on our soya targets, scope and standards click here.

Supporting wider industry change 

- We are active members of the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS), and have submitted our annual progress report and purchased RTRS soya credits each year since 2012. 

-We have participated in the UK Roundtable on Sustainable Soya since its inception and sit on the steering group, and physical supply chains working group, where we collaborate with other companies and NGOs to move the whole UK soya supply to a more sustainable footing.

-We support the Amazon Soy Moratorium and signatories to the Statement of Support for the Cerrado Manifesto, which aim to ensure the rainforests and natural grasslands of Brazil are properly protected. 

-We are a part of the Retail Soy Group and founder members of the Soy Transparency Coalition: a group of companies working together to achieve transparency on soy traders’ practices and performance, in order to eliminate deforestation from soy supply chains.  

Alternatives to soya

For many species of farmed animals and fish, soya is an ideal feed ingredient and is hard to replace fully. Which is why, where we use it, sourcing soya sustainably is essential. Waitrose is committed to working on feed innovation with our suppliers, where substituting soya with other ingredients can potentially reduce animal feed’s environmental footprint whilst maintaining or improving animal welfare. 

Waitrose participated in the Forage Protein Programme, where farmers in our beef, lamb and milk supply chains grew new forage protein crops on their farms. Following this five-year Innovate UK funded project, and collaborating with industry and academic partners, we launched a range of Waitrose Farming Partnership grass and protein mixes for our farmers to grow. Results of the research found adopting these mixes on-farm could reduce greenhouse gas emissions per kg of product by up 27%. They also resulted in financial savings of up to 20% per kg. This saving was driven by reduced demand for imported feed proteins such as soya and reduced need for the use of fertilisers on pasture. 

Waitrose also participated in a four-year Innovate UK funded ‘Optibean’ project exploring using faba beans as a potential replacement for soya in animal feed. Successful feeding trials have been carried out across our pig, poultry, egg and fish supply chains.

We recognise that the production of cotton based products can have significant economic, environmental and social impacts. We have a role to play in supporting responsible and sustainable farming practices in cotton production, including efficient water usage and reduction in the use of harmful chemicals. We take the human rights of those working in these supply chains very seriously. You can find out more on our approach to Human rights in in our latest Modern Slavery Statement. 

We are committed to sourcing our own brand cotton more sustainably. We define ‘more sustainable’ as meeting one of these criteria:

• BCI (Better Cotton Initiative) 
• Organic:  Certified to GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) 
• Recycled: Certified to GRS (Global Recycling Standard)

Traceability of cotton supply chains

Cotton traceability is an industry-wide issue due to cotton’s long and complex global supply chain. We are committed to addressing the traceability challenge, both through our own actions and by working collaboratively with others, which is crucial to implementing the improvements needed.

The majority of our cotton usage is within bed linens and towels assortments, where the cotton originates predominantly from India, Egypt and the USA. We are aware of the ongoing human rights concerns regarding cotton sourced from the Xinjiang region in China. We do not have operations, own-brand suppliers or factories in Xinjiang. However, we currently source a small amount of product from which the cotton originates from China. These products come from suppliers who sign up to our Responsible Sourcing Code of Practice. 

We have always been firmly committed to safeguarding the human rights of those who help make and sell our products and services. As part of this commitment, we have allocated specific funding to invest in tools and technologies that allow physical traceability of raw materials, with the aim of providing us with full visibility and control over where suppliers source cotton from, for all our own-brand products.

Ongoing monitoring

Working collaboratively with the retail sector and organisations such as the BCI is important in driving improvements in cotton supply chains. We became a member in 2015, working closely not just to ensure our own cotton is sustainably sourced, but to drive improvements across the industry. In 2019, our membership enabled BCI to reach and train more than 2,000 farmers on more sustainable farming practices such as efficient water usage and reducing the use of harmful chemicals on the land, resulting in increased yields. We are also a member of the BCI “Chain of Custody Advisory Group”, providing strategic advice to its members on strengthening traceability at every stage of the cotton supply chain. 

In March 2020, the BCI suspended licensing and assurance activities in the Xinjiang region. As a result, there is no new licensed Better Cotton coming from the region. In October 2020, the BCI took the decision to cease all field-level activities in the Xinjiang region including capacity building and data monitoring and reporting.

Palm oil production has been associated with negative social and environmental consequences in tropical countries, from deforestation to worker exploitation; impacts we are deeply concerned about. We believe the only effective way to stop these is to help build a lasting solution that transforms the market for sustainable palm oil around the world.

We work collaboratively to source certified sustainable palm oil for our own-brand products, drive uptake from businesses in our supply chains, source raw materials from responsible traders, to support wider changes to transform the global palm oil industry. 

For the very small amount of palm ingredients that are not yet physically certified, while we work with suppliers to physically certify the remaining palm-based ingredients in our products, we purchase special RSPO credits that directly support smallholder farmers. Buying these RSPO smallholder credits supports and incentivises the production of responsible palm oil in these communities, helping them to improve their livelihoods and protect forests.

Working with others

Through the collaborative groups below, we actively work to strengthen international standards and institutions for certified sustainable palm oil, and to expand their uptake. 

Via our membership of the Retailers’ Palm Oil Group, we have a representative on the RSPO Board of Governors. We also participate actively in the work of the UK Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and its communication working group.

Waitrose is also a founding member of the Palm Oil Transparency Coalition. As a part of this coalition, we want palm oil importers to be held accountable to their own commitments on zero-deforestation and exploitation, and their progress towards them. As a part of this, our direct suppliers declare to us which companies import their palm oil, so we can work with them to align our sourcing with those traders that share our ambition and are making concrete progress.

Alternatives to palm oil

As required by labelling standards, since 2006 we've listed the different types of oils we use in our products ingredients list, including palm oil. While we have removed palm oil where it makes sense for optimising a product’s quality or to improve the health profile of a product, we do not believe eliminating palm oil and palm-based ingredients from all products is the right thing to do to solve the sustainability and ethical problems that are associated with the industry. A view also shared by many of the world's leading conservation organisations.

The latest evidence suggests the outcome of eliminating palm oil from products and replacing them with other vegetable oils would simply displace tropical deforestation to new locations, resulting in little or no overall benefit for biodiversity or for the climate. Looking forward, global demand for vegetable oil is expected to almost double by 2050. It's essential that as little land as possible is used to do this and what’s needed is the sustainable production of palm oil, in the right locations.

Likewise, switching palm ingredients to other vegetable oils would not incentivise change where palm oil is produced, nor help to address human rights issues in the palm oil industry. Most of the world’s certified sustainable palm oil is sold in Europe or North America, therefore boycotting palm oil wouldn’t send a strong signal to producers in countries such as Indonesia or Malaysia to produce sustainably. Instead, palm oil would simply be sold into other growing markets that place lower or no ethical and sustainability demands on the way that it is produced.

From sweaters to bobble hats, cashmere is included in a wide range of John Lewis products. We choose our suppliers very carefully and are committed to ensuring high standards of animal welfare.

Cashmere production is the backbone of nomadic herders’ livelihoods in Mongolia, and other cashmere producing regions in Northern China. Current grazing practices for cashmere goats, combined with climate change, are putting their livelihoods at risk. We are working to create a more sustainable system for cashmere production.

We’re a pioneering member of the Sustainable Fibre Alliance (SFA) – a non-profit UK-based organisation working across the extended cashmere supply chain. Our commitment is to work with the SFA to develop a best practice standard and to work more collaboratively with our peers to ensure we can have a wider and more lasting impact on the industry. Find out more.